'Back to the Future' Director on the Only Way He'd Revive the Franchise

Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis has always been steadfast against any future sequels or reboots to the beloved sci-fi comedy trilogy. Though, in a recent podcast appearance, he did open up about the only way he'd revive the film for the big screen.

Zemeckis was speaking with Josh Horowitz on a recent episode of his Happy Sad Confused podcast, when the host noted that both Zemeckis and Bob Gale, who co-wrote the films, have been "fiercely protective" of the franchise over the years; with the exception of the musical adaptation. 

"We always felt that this as enough and that it had to just live with it being the three movies, and the musical is more of a companion to the movies than a remake," the 72-year-old explained. "It's sort of a whole another thing, and it's just a celebration of the movie, basically."

Horowitz then followed up to ask Zemeckis whether Universal Pictures pesters them about another sequel every few years, given the money being left on the table by not continuing on with the films.

"Oh, every six months," Zemeckis joked, before clarifying with a laugh that he was somewhat exaggerating. "Isn't there anything we can figure out to do here? Isn't there anything we can do?" he said imitating the studio executives. "And you know, we have to say, 'There are different things that might work.' Something like that, you know? But to remake the movie or to suggest that there's a Back to the Future 4, it just isn't in the cards."

Later in the interview, Horowitz asked Zemeckis if there was a genre he'd still like to tackle. "I would like to do Back to the Future: The Musical," he said. "Just like [Mel Brooks] did with The Producers. I would love to do that. I think that would be great."

Unfortunately, Zemeckis also admitted that his attempts to get it off the ground have been unsuccessful thus far. "I floated that out to the folks at Universal, they don't get it. So nothing I can do," he added, to which Horowitz noted: "OK, we're going to put it out into the universe and try to make that happen for you."

Never say never.